Cairo, Egypt – After four submarine cables were cut this week causing major Internet outages across the Middle East, the situation has worsened with reports that wireless connections have been damaged as well.
According to the Egyptian Minister of Information, Aziz Khoroush, wireless Internet outages were caused by a "low-flying plane which cut a major wireless Internet connection entering the country."
Egypt has two major wi-fi connections, which handle most of the wireless Internet traffic in and out of the country. When the plane severed one, all the traffic had to be routed to the remaining connection, causing outages and degraded performance.
Citizens unable to voice their frustrations on the Web took to the streets. Many carried placards saying, "OMGWTF?" and "Egyptians for Ron Paul."
Others wondered how a plane could sever wireless Internet connections, and voiced concerns of a government cover up of the real reason behind the outages. "They expect us to believe that a plane could sever a wireless connection? That's ridiculous, an airplane couldn't do that, but I suspect a UFO could," said Mohammed al-Bella in Cairo.
Government officials deny any cover up, but closed alien landing ports at the pyramids to tourists as a "precaution."
According to Khoroush, work has begun to repair the connection and expect service to be restored by Friday.
Google's stock was down on the news.
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